The present invention relates to editing processing of moving images such as video pictures and sounds, and in particular to an image editing method and an image editing apparatus suitable for creation of television broadcast programs and video programs, and to a medium having a program recorded thereon to make a computer execute image editing processing operation.
In recent years, methods for creating television broadcast programs and video programs, enhanced by using computers have been rapidly advanced. Instead of video editing techniques of using a video tape recorder and repeating the fast feed and rewinding operation, editing is conducted by using images stored in a hard disk which is inexpensive and easy to handle and preserve. Moving image editing apparatuses using such techniques of so-called direct scheme have recently attracted attention.
In JP-A-4-207877, there is disclosed a moving image managing apparatus for displaying moving images on a screen in a hierarchical structure of a tree form including cuts and scenes and conducting editing by taking a scene or a cut as the unit.
Herein, the term "moving image" means image information which contains pictures of a plurality of frame units or sound information or both of them arranged respectively independently in time series and which can be displayed as moving images.
As for the image editing work, work to be decided by using the sensitivity of an editor is main work in any case. As for the image editing method, an apparatus of a scheme of conducting image editing by using the display for manipulating video pictures on the image editing screen, i.e., so-called icon display (hereafter referred to as icon) in association with image information is used.
In the conventional technique of such a image editing apparatus, effect editing is conducted between a desired cut (a series of a plurality of frame unit pictures) included in time serial video picture materials (moving pictures) or a scene formed by a plurality of cuts and another desired cut or another scene. FIGS. 2 and 3 show examples of screen display obtained at this time. That is, in the effect editing, a picture is switched over to another one while the contents of the picture is changed.
First of all, FIG. 2 shows an example of display of a screen for the computer aided editing work. FIG. 3 is a different example of display of a screen for the computer aided editing work. Both of these editing works use representative software for picture editing which is commercially available.
The general configuration of the editing apparatus used at this time is a system based upon a computer. To be more concrete, it is a typical and general-purpose configuration having a central processing unit, a memory and various devices operated by an operator.
FIG. 4 shows an example of an image editing system. The image editing system has a computer 401. To the computer 401, a monitor 407 including a display screen having a size of, for example, 19 inches is connected.
A video reproduction unit (VTR) 402 can reproduce any video information (image information) of the NTSC system, PAL system, or any other format system. The video information reproduced by this video reproduction unit 402 is sent to a video capture/frame storage unit 403, and converted into digital information and stored therein.
The video information thus stored in the video capture/frame storage unit 403 is then supplied to a disk accelerator 405 via an expander/compressor 404.
This expander/compressor 404 functions to compress and expand video information. An expanding/compressing processor using a JPEG (Joint Photographic coding Experts Group) chip having the highest rate at the present time is often used.
The disk accelerator 405 functions to transmit the video information sent from the video reproduction unit 402 to the video capture/frame storage unit 403 and stored therein to at least one disk storage unit 406, or functions to receive information therefrom.
By using control signals 408, 409 and 410, the computer 401 controls components of the image editing apparatus, i.e., the video capture/frame storage unit 403, the expander/compressor 404, and the disk accelerator 405.
For the purpose of the editing work and other works to be then executed, the video information stored in the disk storage unit 406 can be read out from the disk storage unit 406, and read into the video capture/frame storage unit 403 via the disk accelerator 405 and the expander/compressor 404 by using the control signals 408, 409 and 410 supplied from the computer 401.
In accessing desired video information, the apparatus shown in FIG. 4 has a feature in that it can "immediately" access (i.e., randomly access) the video information unlike the conventional sequential file apparatus needing the rewinding operation of the video tape in principle. As described above, therefore, the technique of the direct scheme is used.
The aforementioned FIGS. 2 and 3 show first and second examples of a screen for the editing work displayed on the monitor 407, respectively. In FIGS. 2 and 3, vertical lines denoted by numerals 210 and 313 are figures for indicating the reference position at the time of editing work, and they are called current position bars.
Numerals 302 and 303 on the screen of FIG. 3 denote time lines for relatively indicating the position and the range of a cut or a scene to be edited on the basis of the position of the above described current position bar. For each picture information (image information) to which the cut or scene to be edited belongs, a track for time line display is assigned and a corresponding track name is provided.
On the screen of FIG. 2, numeral 203 denotes a time line for relatively indicating the position and the range of a cut or a scene after the editing. On the screen of FIG. 3, numeral 304 denotes a time line indicating the range of synthesis when pictures of the two time lines 302 and 303 are combined and edited.
Each of numerals 201 (FIG. 2) and 301 (FIG. 3) denotes a time line window. On the window, the above described time line is displayed. The time lines 203, 302 and 303 can be moved in a scroll manner by screen manipulation.
Numeral 205 denotes a program window. In order to confirm a scene of the image (picture) of the time line 203 displayed in the time line window 201, its image is displayed in the program window 205 according to image information (video information) read out from the disk storage unit 406. A group of buttons for directing mark-in and mark-out positions which are reproduction start and reproduction stop positions of the image displaying with a mouse (not illustrated) which is a direction device connected to the computer 401 of FIG. 4 are also displayed.
Numerals 206 and 306 denote windows called working bin window or project window, for displaying video information (image information) stored in the disk storage unit 406, mainly edited image information.
For conducting effect editing, a window 305 for displaying a list of various video effect patterns and an effect setting window 312 for setting the kind of the effect or the effect quantity, or a video effect panel window 207 having the functions of these two windows together are provided.
The effect editing is editing for conducting special effect processing such as a wipe effect or a dissolve effect on an image. In the process of transition from a picture A to a picture B, the wipe effect is image processing (picture processing) of eliminating the picture A from the screen in a certain changing pattern as if it wipes off the picture A and instead causing a different picture B to appear in an area from which the picture A has been eliminated. In the process of transition from a picture A to a picture B, the dissolve effect is picture processing of causing a picture B to gradually appear while causing the luminance of the picture A to gradually fall and disappear. In the effect editing, other special effect processings other than the wipe effect and the dissolve effect may be also included.
Operation required for the effect editing will now be described in more detail by referring to FIGS. 2 and 3.